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April 22
- 28, 2005
This internal publication contains information about recent coverage
of Carnegie Mellon that appeared primarily in national newspapers, magazines
and online publications. Please note that some sources may require registration
or a subscription in order to access their information online.
Please send comments and suggestions to thomas@cmu.edu
The media coverage archive is available at www.cmu.edu/clips
From April 22 - 28,
Carnegie Mellon Media Relations counted 243
references to the university in worldwide
publications. Here is a sample.
National News Stories
The Wall Street Journal | April 27
The New York Times | April 24
Science Magazine | April 22
Discovery Channel News | April 21
Student Experience
Post-Gazette | April 27
Tribune-Review | April 25
Tribune-Review | April 24
Qatar Campus
Gulf Times, Qatar | April 24
Arts and Humanities
Post-Gazette | April 25
WQED | April 24
Information Technology
Tribune-Review | April 23
Cybersecurity
Tribune-Review | April 27
Post-Gazette | April 22
Tribune-Review | April 22
MSNBC | April 22
Environment
Industry Week | May 1 Edition
Post-Gazette | April 27
Post-Gazette | April 27
The Christian Science Monitor | April 26
Regional Impact
Post-Gazette | April 26
Post-Gazette | April 22
Local News Stories
Post-Gazette | April 27
Pittsburgh Business Times | April 22
International News Stories
Asia Computer Weekly, Singapore | April 25
Hindu Business Line, India | April 24
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National News Stories
The Wall Street Journal | April 27
Sometime in the next nine months, President Bush will make one of the
most important appointments of his presidency, one that history suggests
will affect the economy in the U.S. and abroad long past the end of
his term: Selecting a successor to Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan.
"Every president wants and chooses someone who he believes will
not harm him," says Allan Meltzer, a Carnegie
Mellon University economist and expert on Fed history. Once
appointed, he notes, chairmen often then assert their independence.
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111456811
691217946-search,00.html | back
to top
The New York Times | April 24
It isn't frivolous, it isn't gimmicky, and it doesn't pander to college
students who love their Xboxes more than they love their mothers. Most
of all, they would like you to know, it is not trendy. The new course
of study in digital games at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is "profoundly
conservative," says James Watt, chairman of the college's language,
literature and communication department and a specialist in human-computer
interaction...The point is that R.P.I. students (like college students
everywhere) did not wait to learn game-making in a classroom. They went
hunting for faculty to help them. "The program burst out of the
students," says Kathleen Ruíz, an artist and professor.
She taught the first game class at R.P.I. five years ago. Back then,
says Jesse Schell, a leader in university-level game
development at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, "games
were just beginning to move from a nerdy niche business into something
that's really big." Carnegie Mellon was an early creator of the
interdisciplinary teaching model that many schools, including R.P.I.,
have adapted. "It's become pretty well understood in the industry
that communication and collaboration among people in different disciplines
is the key to great content," says Professor Schell, who was creative
director at the Walt Disney Imagineering VR Studio before he joined
Carnegie Mellon.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04
/24/education/brenna24.html | back
to top
Science Magazine | April 22
The elusive pentaquark may be about to disappear. A new result presented
at a meeting provides the strongest evidence yet that the much-studied
theta-plus particle is just a statistical mirage. Another round of JLab
results might seal the pentaquark's fate. "I hope the issue will
be settled soon," says Curtis Meyer, a physicist
at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
"But I'm not going to buy any pentaquark stock right now."
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content
/full/308/5721/478b | back to
top
Discovery Channel News | April 21
A new chair may help keep elderly people happy, healthy and active.
The SenseChair prototype, developed by a team of researchers and designers
at Carnegie Mellon University, uses robotic technology
to monitor the sitter's behavior and respond accordingly. Research on
the SenseChair started with a two-year study that identified 55 opportunities
for using technology in the home. The team was comprised of people from
a range of disciplines, including social scientists, production and
interactive designers, and mechanical and software engineers. Using
expertise from their own fields, in addition to feedback collected from
focus groups, the team created a high-tech product that didn't intimate
seniors. "We feel that for elders, who are our first audience,
the metal man is probably not the right model," said assistant
professor of design and human-computer interaction Jodi Forlizzi,
who heads the SenseChair team.
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs
/20050418/sensechair.html | back
to top
Student Experience
Post-Gazette | April 27
Once relatively rare, the medium-sized envelopes containing word of
being wait-listed are now received by tens of thousands of students,
and are becoming more common each year. The number of names on waiting
lists has grown alongside a record surge in applications to colleges
-- especially highly selective schools -- over the past five or so years,
a surge that shows no signs of abating...Once colleges see who has accepted
them after May 1 -- the date when students must postmark their college
decision responses -- most schools look to the wait list to fill any
perceived holes. [Some students will send] personal letters and an additional
teacher recommendation to schools that wait-listed [them]. It's a tactic
recommended by local admissions officers, who say that extra effort
can help a student's chances. At the very least, admissions officers
recommend sending along any updated information, like grades or awards.
At Carnegie Mellon, Director of Admissions
Michael Steidel has seen some rather creative "letters"
in his 27 years at the university. Students on the waiting list have
sent life preservers, messages in bottles and miniature computers with
pleas written on the monitors. Steidel said that despite the long waiting
list, the odds of admission to Carnegie Mellon are not as bad as they
seem. He said fewer than half of wait-listed students will even send
back the card, and that only about 10 percent would actually attend.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05117/494855.stm
| back to top
Tribune-Review | April 25
The economy is rebounding, and 2005 graduates are enjoying the bump.
"Overall, salaries seem to be increasing," said Andrea Koncz,
employment information manager for the National Association of Colleges
and Employers, a Bethlehem-based group that does an annual survey on
the job outlook for college graduates. "Most of the disciplines
have shown increases over the last spring, whereas last year, there
were few that showed increases." The number of companies recruiting
at Carnegie Mellon University has grown from 316 to
440 over the last two years. The university has had 5,300 job interviews
so far this year. That compares to 4,200 all of last year. Opportunities
are up across the board," said Paul Fowler, director
of the career center at Carnegie Mellon. **Please note that this story
also includes a round-up of local university commencement ceremony dates.
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review
/trib/regional/s_327625.html | back
to top
Tribune-Review | April 24
Adina Klein, of Fox Chapel, wasn't sure what she wanted to major in
when she considered her higher education, so she chose an interdisciplinary
program that allowed her to mix two disparate fields of study. Now a
junior at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh,
Klein chose the school because it allowed her to pursue a degree in
"sciences and arts," and develop her interests and talents
in chemistry and architecture. Klein is one of the thousands of college
students who select "majors" on roads less traveled, who pursue
dreams with as much, if not more, passion as the budding biologist or
the enthusiastic engineer in the next classroom.
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/search/s_327406.html
| back to top
Qatar Campus
Gulf Times, Qatar | April 24
Imagine this. A widely grinning robot welcoming you to Qatar Foundation’s
Education City and giving directions or offering a tour. As you cruise
along in a hi-tech cab driven by another robot, which launches into
a commentary pointing out various landmarks, you come across more robots.
A couple of Segway RMP (robotic mobility platform) engage in small talk
as they criss-cross paths while running courier errands. No sooner than
you begin to wonder where have all the humans gone, you suddenly realise
some are catching up with the cab in their Segway HT (Human Transporter).
This is not imagination that would remain as fiction. All this and much
more could become a reality in the not-too-distant future. Especially
when robotics research, that has begun to sprout at Carnegie
Mellon University in Qatar (Carnegie MellonQ), starts yielding
results for the world to see.
http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=
34328&version=1&template_id=36&parent_id=16
| back to top
Arts and Humanities
Post-Gazette | April 25
Scott Sandage was always fascinated by the row upon
row of self-help books at Barnes & Noble and Borders -- so many
evangelistic prescriptions for how to become richer, happier, smarter
and better-looking. But as a historian and a student of human nature,
he wondered: Why aren't there any books on failure? The smug answer
might be that nobody would pay money to learn how to fail. Still, there
are the hard realities of daily life. Half of all small businesses go
under within the first five years. Four out of 10 initial marriages
collapse. The top baseball players, sports analysts are fond of saying,
only get a hit about three times out of 10...Pondering the meaning of
all this led Sandage, an associate professor of history at Carnegie
Mellon University, on a 10-year journey that resulted in his
writing "Born Losers: A History of Failure in America," which
was awarded the Thomas J. Wilson Prize as best first book published
this year by Harvard University Press. Along the way, Sandage discovered
that starting sometime in the 1800s, failure in America changed from
an event to a state of being.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05115/494019.stm
| back to top
WQED | April 24
When you go to Carnegie Mellon to experience the Drama
and Music Schools’ production of "Candide" you may get
quite a few surprises. First, if you have heard or seen some version
of it before, you may hear and see parts new to you. Second, you may
be astonished and impressed by the script’s constant satirical
bite and constant flow of comedy. Third you may be amazed and delighted
by the vocal and acting talent of the student cast. This musical has
so many reincarnations, revisions and revivals that trying to count
and compare them could become a degree-producing thesis. Since its original
inception in 1956, it has always had music by Leonard Bernstein. At
Carnegie Mellon you can experience how it emerged in 1999. This features
some of the original lyrics by Richard Wilbur, John Latouche and Dorothy
Parker with later additions by Stephen Sondheim and Bernstein himself.
The 1999 script comes from playwrights John Caird and Hugh Wheeler who
remain faithful to Voltaire’s narrative. **Please note that this
radio review was transcribed for Bayer's Sunday Arts Magazine on WQED
and are not available online.
back to top
Information Technology
Tribune-Review | April 23
An expert hired by state elections officials discovered anomalies Friday
as he retested touch-screen voting machines used in Beaver, Greene and
Mercer counties. Carnegie Mellon University computer
science professor Michael Shamos said he couldn't say
whether the Unilect Patriot voting machines passed the test. Shamos
said he will have to review the videotape of a four-hour examination
yesterday and other evidence before making a recommendation. The Department
of State, which hired Shamos, decertified the machines April 7 after
they failed accuracy tests on Feb. 15. Asked for an example of the anomalies
he noticed, Shamos said at least five times he put his finger in the
middle of a candidate's name on the computer screen and nothing registered.
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review
/trib/regional/s_327234.html | back
to top
Tribune-Review | April 27
A diverse group of 20 individuals are winners of 2005 Carnegie Science
Center Awards for Excellence. The annual awards, which recognize achievements
and technology, will be presented at ceremonies at 7 p.m. today at the
Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh. Honorees include representatives from
the fields of technology and education, entrepreneurs, local media and
regional students and teachers. Winners include: Information Technology:
Richard Pethia, of the Software Engineering Institute of Carnegie
Mellon University. Pethia is the founder and director of the
Computer Emergency Response Team Coordination Center, which helps the
nation respond to attacks on the Internet system.
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review
/business/s_328348.html | back
to top
Post-Gazette | April 22
With the FBI now in the hunt for whoever breached business school computers
at Carnegie Mellon University, officials yesterday
said the array of compromised data also included grades and job offer
information, including salaries. In addition to current students, thousands
of Tepper School of Business alumni from as far back as the early 1950s
may have been affected if they opted to include information about themselves
-- like a phone number, street address or personal e-mail address --
in any of the databases compromised by one or more hackers.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05112/492604.stm
| back to top
Tribune-Review | April 22
If hackers can invade computers at Carnegie Mellon University,
an internationally renowned leader in the field of cybersecurity, they
can penetrate them anywhere. That was the reaction of computer experts
and privacy rights advocates Thursday to news that hackers raided computers
at Carnegie Mellon's Tepper School of Business earlier this month and
gained access to sensitive personal information belonging to about 20,000
applicants, graduate students and support staff. "It can happen
to the best and brightest," said Beth Givens, founder and director
of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a nonprofit consumer rights group
based in San Diego. "Data breaches like this point out there's
really nothing an individual can ultimately do to prevent identity theft."
The Carnegie Mellon cyber-theft wasn't an isolated incident. Since mid-February,
the personal information of more than 4 million people has been compromised
by similar electronic security breaches at organizations as diverse
as ChoicePoint, Bank of America and LexisNexis, Givens said.
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review
/trib/regional/s_326822.html | back
to top
MSNBC | April 22
It's just a small download, promoted as a free antivirus program. But
the software is really designed to sit silently on consumers' computers,
watch everything they do online, and send the critical data back to
the program’s creator. The program has swept the Internet in the
last year, with millions of people downloading it. The newest spyware?
Nope. Welcome to the Internet's newest marketing tool, "researchware."
Consider it spyware's above-board, distant relative. Unlike spyware,
researchware makes its purpose clear when downloaded by consumers. Its
intent is not to trick people into receiving annoying pop-up advertisements,
but rather, to gather legitimate market research data. And it's easy
to uninstall, unlike spyware, which is as hard to shake as a bad cold
in winter...Still, not everyone is comfortable with researchware. But
even absent security issues, privacy advocates wonder if it’s
possible for consumers to make an informed choice when they elect to
trade so much information for a small benefit like faster Internet service
or virus protection. "I would claim that even the most interested
and informed individual cannot forecast the implications of this deal,"
said Alessandro Acquisti, a professor at Carnegie
Mellon University who studies the economics of privacy.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7546554/
| back to top
Environment
Industry Week | May 1 Edition
With soaring energy costs, unstable supplies and increasingly vocal
debate about the United States' overdependence on nonrenewable fossil
fuels taking center stage these days, you may be tempted to identify
growing energy concerns as a recent phenomenon. Don't mention that to
appliance manufacturers, however. Ask those with a sense of history,
and they will point to the mid-1970s as the start of what has evolved
into a continuing challenge to reduce the energy consumption of their
products. Cheap electricity in the early 1970s had neither manufacturers
nor the consuming public particularly concerned about the energy efficiency
of their washing machines or refrigerators, explains Lester
B. Lave, an economics professor at Carnegie Mellon
University, Pittsburgh, and co-director of the school's Electricity
Industry Center. Once prices started inching up in 1973, however, everyone
began taking energy efficiency more seriously. The 1973-74 Arab oil
embargo further focused the nation's attention on energy.
http://www.industryweek.com/ReadArticle.aspx
?ArticleID=10212&SectionID=3 | back
to top
Post-Gazette | April 27
Surveys of owners of hybrid powered automobiles show that on the average,
each is saving about 408 gallons of fuel a year -- or, based on recent
gasoline prices, about $900 annually. That's according to surveys of
almost 1,000 people by Carnegie Mellon University engineering,
science and public policy students. The results were released yesterday.
The surveys also showed that owners of about 200 diesel-powered cars
are saving 388 gallons of fuel each year even though they drove 22 percent
more miles than they had in the past. By comparison, hybrid owners experienced
only a modest change in the amount of driving that they did, the study
said. That could be because fewer hybrid owners apparently use their
cars as primary vehicles. There was a clear difference between owners
of hybrids and diesels, said Scott Matthews, an assistant
engineering and public policy professor.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05117/494736.stm
| back to top
Post-Gazette | April 27
While steep slopes account for a little more than 10 percent of Pittsburgh's
land, their verdant cloaks are responsible for much of the city's aesthetic
appeal, a group of architects and environmentalists said Tuesday. Ecological
experts from Carnegie Mellon University, representatives
of the Allegheny Land Trust and architects from Perkins Eastman in Pittsburgh
presented a report to City Council at a public hearing yesterday that
recommends restricting development on city hillsides. "Hillsides
are Pittsburgh's calling cards," said Councilman Bill Peduto, 40,
of Point Breeze, the hearing's sponsor. Peduto first proposed examining
ways to preserve the hillsides more than two years ago. With financial
support from the Heinz Endowments, the architectural and ecological
consultants conducted a yearlong study with City Council's Hillside
Steering Committee. Their report suggests zoning changes that would
strengthen hillside development protections for neighborhoods such as
Mt. Washington.
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review
/trib/pittsburgh/s_328315.html | back
to top
The Christian Science Monitor | April 26
Bryan and Chris Higgins didn't set out to save the world. But one look
at their home, built on a tiny lot with tall windows and radiant floor
heat that result in low utility bills, and it's obvious the young couple
has a mission: to leave the lightest footprint possible on mother earth's
soil. The Higgins are at the forefront of a boom in green building.
Much of it is being driven by a generation of young professionals interested
in anything "earth friendly" to create their own urban oasis.
Call them GUPPYS - green urban professionals who are young...Not everyone
characterizes the green momentum in such optimistic terms. "There
clearly is an upward swing, but if you're talking about any real penetration
into the mainstream, I don't think there's been any," says Lester
Lave, an economics professor and director of the Carnegie
Mellon Green Design Initiative in Pittsburgh. Mr. Lave has
been pushing for greener building since he moved to Pittsburgh in the
late '60s, and he admits his patience has worn thin. "When I put
on my economics hat, I think it is reprehensible for people to build
buildings where they're focusing only on first costs. There's no excuse
for it."
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0426
/p03s01-ussc.html | back to
top
Regional Impact
Post-Gazette | April 26
Nine Carnegie Mellon University graduate students teamed
with the Allegheny County Department of Human Services to find new ways
to gauge the success of programs that help the region's homeless. The
students released a 100-page report Monday that said the department
should survey homeless men and women throughout their time in four "Continuum
of Care" programs that account for more than $10 million in taxpayer-funded
programs. The report also suggests giving shelter and support providers
more information about each homeless client's history of using human
services, and it recommends finding ways to determine each client's
short- and long-term success. If the human services department uses
those recommendations, Carnegie Mellon Professor Michael Johnson
said, the agency will be better able to determine how much money each
program should get from the shrinking coffers of the U.S. Department
of Housing and Urban Development. The students combed through seven
years of department data for the study conducted from January to April.
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review
/trib/pittsburgh/s_327914.html | back
to top
Post-Gazette | April 22
Carnegie Mellon University won approval from the Pittsburgh
Urban Redevelopment Authority on Thursday to receive a $5 million state
grant for construction of two buildings. The first is a 200,000-square-foot
robotics research building in the heart of the Oakland campus, said
Ralph R. Horgan, associate vice provost. The facility will be used in
part to develop planetary robotics, which will allow scientists to continue
to explore other planets, such as Mars, with remote-controlled robots.
The second building will house 300,000 square feet of business development
space across Panther Hollow. A pedestrian bridge will link the new business
center with the main campus grounds. Carnegie Mellon officials hope
a major robotics, software or other high-tech firm will set up a research
facility in the new building across the hollow, said Tim McNulty,
special assistant to the provost at Carnegie Mellon.
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review
/trib/pittsburgh/s_326860.html | back
to top
Local News Stories
Post-Gazette | April 27
Alvin Fong in his Carnegie Mellon dorm room yesterday
-- "I'm doing my best to try and not think about [the possible
lawsuit]. It's hard. It was like my life exploded." Alvin Fong
is feeling all the stresses one normally experiences in the week before
final exams at Carnegie Mellon University -- plus one extremely unusual
one. He could be facing a lawsuit by the $12-billion recording industry.
Yet unlike most of 400-plus college students nationally who are possible
targets in this latest battle over Internet copyright protection, Fong
and some of his peers have resolved not to worry in isolation. They
formed a campus support group of sorts to share information, resources
and, assuming they find a lawyer, a little advice on how to confront
a deep-pocketed legal foe.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05117/494914.stm
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Pittsburgh Business Times | April 22
Carnegie Mellon University hopes that a new nanotechnology
center will promote the commercialization of nanotechnology research
and help to spin off new companies, according to Cristina Amon,
director of the College of Engineering's Institute for Complex Engineered
Systems. The Center for Nano-Enabled Devices and Energy Technology will
bring together nanoscale research under way at the College of Engineering
and the Mellon College of Science. Over the past three years, the university
has been working on a number of nanotechnology projects, and it has
received more than $13 million in federal funding. It will focus on
alternative energy technology, such as fuel cells, and sensors that
use nanoscale properties to monitor things such as the human body and
the environment, according to Pradeep Khosla, dean
of Carnegie Mellon's College of Engineering.
http://pittsburgh.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh
/stories/2005/04/25/focus4.html | back
to top
International News Stories
Asia Computer Weekly, Singapore | April 25
Hacker tools are growing more sophisticated and automated. Hackers can
now quickly adapt to new security vulnerabilities as they are uncovered,
and distribute the fruits of their exploits more widely with the help
of automated toolkits. And they are using an ever-increasing range of
methods to find individuals’ and companies’ private information
and use it to their advantage. And yet many of us have a false sense
of security about our own data and networks. We install a firewall at
the perimeter, put anti-virus and anti-spyware tools on our desktops,
and use encryption to send and store data. Although others who are less
careful might be at risk, we are safe, right? Maybe not. Take a look
at these seven security myths and see if your data is as secure as you
think...Myth No.5: Security tools and software patches make everybody
safer. Some tools allow hackers to reverse-engineer patches that Microsoft
distributes through its Windows Update service. By comparing the changes
in the patch, the hacker can see how the patch is trying to work around
a particular vulnerability and then determine how to take advantage
of it. "New tools are developed every day around the same basic
theme of scanning for vulnerabilities," said Marty Lindner,
team leader for incident handling, CERT Coordination Center at Carnegie
Mellon University’s Software Engineering Institute.
http://www.asiacomputerweekly.com/acw_ViewArt.cfm?
Magid=1&Artid=26688&Catid=3&subcat=50
| back to top
Hindu Business Line, India | April 24
Consider this. Your friend asks you why Infosys trades at Rs 1,900.
You explain that a stock price reflects a company's "fundamentals".
That is, the stock price is a function of the company's revenues and
EPS. Studies in behavioural economics, however, suggest that we do not
value goods (including stocks) based on "fundamentals". Instead,
we assign values based on a behaviour termed as Coherent Arbitrariness.
What is this behaviour? Professor George Lowenstein
of Carnegie Mellon University coined this term based
on a series of experiments that he conducted with two MIT Profs. The
basis of this experiment was the 1974 study by behavioural psychologists
Kahneman and Tversky.
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/iw/2005/04
/24/stories/2005042400401300.htm | back
to top
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